"he tried to tell the truth, but what came out was only half of the truth. Later, much later, he found that he was unable to relieve himself of two regrets: one, that when she leaned back he saw that the necklace he made had scratched her throat, and two, that in the most important moment of his life he had chosen the wrong sentence."

The thunder woke us up last night. I couldn't think of the last time I heard thunder in Arizona. And even now the world is slowly dripping outside my window.

Strange. (Bordering on spooky.)

Half asleep, I said a big "Wow," holding out the vowel too long and asking David if that really was thunder. He grunted in the affirmative and rolled over.

I said triumphantly, "See, the whole universe is mourning our fall from grace." But he was already asleep again. He doesn't believe in seeing signs in the weather.

I, however, tend to. Just for the melodrama if nothing else. Reading the mind of heaven by the inflections in the clouds. Almost as good as reading David's eyebrows. (Which I am brilliant at, by the way, no matter what he says.)

Last night in the dark, while the skies rolled above us and added their own consternation to mine, (I love it when the universe agrees with me), I thought about our magical days on the beach at Tofino.

And pined away the rest of the night.

I pined especially for July 10th. The best day of my entire year.

That morning we rode our bikes to the beach at low tide, when the fog was still thick and sand dollars littered the beach, a fortune free for the taking,

and the kids scrambled over the tide pools and filled their pockets with the discarded homes of sea creatures.

We rode the bikes all the way down McKenzie beach

and flew the kite,

and then nearly got lost in the fog on the way back home. We followed the shoreline until it ran out into the rainforest.

Home for lunch and hot-tubbing, and then we stuffed ourselves back into the wet suits and spent one last glorious afternoon on Cox Bay.

See what I mean?

Easily the best day of my year. In the top ten of my life even.

Go ahead and wistfully weep with me and the Arizona sky. The universe has given its approval.